Lethe
by queen haggard
Summary: The curse is broken, but Belle's memories remain hidden. Together, she and Mr. Gold search for answers. (AU)
1. Chapter 1: Gold

_while I powder my nose  
he will powder his guns  
if I try to get close  
he is already gone  
I don't know what he's doing  
I don't know where he's been  
but he is restless at night  
he has horrible dreams  
_- Daughter, "Run"

* * *

Mr. Gold, née Rumpelstiltskin, was deep in the woods during the curse-break. It felt, to him, more like a sigh than a gasp, more like a gradual loosening of muscles long held tight than a sudden tightening of muscles atrophied by time. He already possessed all his memories from the Enchanted Forest, and being focused on the trek to the wishing well, he did not pause when the curse slowly fell away from him like so many tiny chains, but continued on, his cane prodding the uneven earth and the faerie wand within resonating as something of its true nature returned to it—not its prior magic, but Gold would correct that soon enough. His only reaction to the lifting of the spell that had kept the residents of the Forest in thrall for twenty-eight years was to glance back at the woman following after him on feet even less steady than his own. A quick assessment of Belle with his newly-unmuffled magic-sense, viable even in a non-magical world, revealed that Regina had placed certain spells on her to spare her the worst physical and mental effects of lengthy imprisonment. Hardly an act of mercy when one considered that a bargaining chip was less valuable broken.

The Queen had played this one remarkably close to the chest, all things considered. What prudence his former pupil possessed was the cultivated sort, learned rather than innate: in hindsight, he was surprised that she hadn't made use of the only woman Rumpelstiltskin had ever loved. Perhaps Regina had been too afraid of retribution to do so—as she should have been, as she should still be. Gold's hand tightened on his cane as he imagined using it to break every bone in the Queen's wretched body. He thought grimly that Regina should opt for the inadvertent mercy of a swift death by lynch mob over what he had in store for her.

For her part, Belle remained quiet—oddly quiet. Shouldn't she have recovered her memories by now? Gold paused walking, turned to face Belle fully, and, noting this, she did a strange little maneuver that Gold realized was her trying to both speed up and pause at the same time. That she did not know whether to draw closer to him or to keep her distance was not as telling, however, as the look on her face—the same weary, skittish, lost expression she had worn since their reunion in his shop.

Something like fear seized Gold in the chest. Unable to dislodge it, he cleared his throat instead. "Do you…"

She paused, narrowing her eyes in vague confusion. Gold forced himself to press on: "What do you remember?" he asked her. "Anything?"

He found the answer in the blankness that stole over her face, the way her lips pursed, briefly, before she forced herself to be braver than she had to be, shaking her head and admitting, "No," with surprising steadiness. "I—I remember nothing."

Instinctively, or out of vain hope, Gold reached out with his magic-sense again, and—there it was. Another curse, and an unfamiliar one at that. Or, no, he realized. Perhaps…not a curse at all?

Gold barely registered his own movement before he was by her side. Belle stiffened, but met his gaze and did not shy away from him—brave girl, he thought with a pang. "What are you…?"

Gold's hand faltered halfway to the collar of her hooded jacket.

"You must forgive me," he said, dropping his hand back to his side. "I'm afraid someone may have done you an—unusual injury, but I would need to see it…" He shook his head. "It'd be inappropriate at this juncture, I should think, to ask you to allow me to do so." Even if it would help him determine the best course of action, he couldn't impose the request on her now. "I will have a nurse or doctor examine you later."

"No!" said Belle. Her eyes went bright, though her voice did not tremble. "Please, no doctors. I don't want that."

Gold could have kicked himself. "Of course not, dearie. I apologize. I only meant to protect your privacy. A female friend, then?"

"A friend of yours?"

"An acquaintance, at any rate. I don't have many—_friends_ in the traditional sense." Gold found he couldn't meet her gaze. Even that small honesty was exhausting.

She bit her lip. "Do I have any?" she blurted, small-voiced. "Friends? Family…?"

Moe French's face, injured and agonized, appeared in Gold's mind's eye. He pushed the image away.

"You have me," he said. "And I swear by everything that I am, was, and may yet be that I will protect you as best I can."

She studied him for an interval, then nodded slowly. Her eyes held a question in them.

"What is it?" asked Gold gently.

"My—My name. Do you know it?"

A wave of tenderness overtook him, as sharp and consuming as fear. Gold had to fight not to touch her with the hand not holding his cane. "Oh, yes. Belle. Your name is Belle."

_Belle._ Her chapped lips formed the word silently before turning up in a fragile yet genuine smile. "…Thank you."

He returned her grin as best he could. "It's no matter," he said, before turning and leading her on toward the wishing well, his now-modified plans returning to the forefront of his mind, the final tatters of Regina's broken curse dissolving into the air.


	2. Chapter 2: Belle

"Where are we going?"

Slowing slightly, Gold glanced back at her, and Belle wondered how she must appear to him, to make him regard her with such a strange expression each time she spoke. "There's something I must do here," he said, tone apologetic, "and I wouldn't leave you alone just now. I'll be done soon, and then we can return home and…rest."

Something told Belle that Mr. Gold did not plan on doing any resting, himself—there was a sense of urgent purpose to his strides that she could not begin to unravel in her present state. She nodded anyhow, and he resumed his trek; she followed behind as she had been, struggling to keep up and to process her surroundings. After so long confined in darkness, the forest through which Mr. Gold led Belle was both a joy and a terror. In the hospital, having no memories of any single place to populate her dreams of escape, Belle had instead filled the innumerable hours between meals and checkups with a vague longing for such general hallmarks of freedom as those surrounding her now: warm sunlight, clear skies, lush earth and green leaves. She couldn't believe how fresh the air smelled; it tasted sweet and pure despite the bitterness that lingered on her tongue (a product of the initial anxiety she'd experienced upon fleeing the hospital: panic, sour and choking, had seethed at the back of her throat throughout the course of her frantic search for Mr. Gold's pawnshop, and had abated only somewhat when its proprietor had embraced her and made his promise). Yet the strangeness of the wood, so wide open in comparison to her metal-and-concrete prison, put her on edge. She wanted to ask what sort of _something_ Mr. Gold needed to accomplish in such a place, but she did not think it would be polite or wise to interrogate her only ally at this stage. Instead she followed him like a child or a shadow and tried not to think too much about anything.

She almost didn't notice the old well sitting atop a gentle rise in the forest floor. Rimed with moss and dotted with lichen, the stone pit had, with age, taken on the hue of its surroundings, and Belle thought that even if she'd been at her most alert, it would have been difficult to spot from a distance. Mr. Gold climbed to the top of the hill, and drew a small glass bottle from the inner pocket of his coat. He uncorked it as he addressed her.

"Do you believe in magic, Belle?"

Unsure if she'd heard him correctly, Belle opened her mouth, then closed it, considering. "Not before today. Now I think I might," she admitted at length, for lying would have taken too much effort, "but magic and miracles aren't really the same thing, are they?" Freedom was a miracle, she thought, no matter the pain and confusion that came with it. She would never take it for granted—not after so long in the dark.

"No, certainly not." Gold quirked a humorless grin, then hesitated. "This will be a lot to process, but you must know: you and I and everyone else in town were not born in this world. We were brought here by a curse. By magic." He looked at her, utterly serious as he shifted his weight further onto his cane. Belle thought she saw him clutch the vial a bit tighter as he spoke.

"What are you saying?"

"The truth. This isn't our land. We've all of us been trapped here for quite a while, Belle; your imprisonment was simply more severe."

If anyone else had told Belle this, she might have wondered whether they, too, had escaped from a mental ward, or if they were playing a cruel joke on her. But she could sense no lie in Mr. Gold's words, and he had sworn to keep her safe. Why would he pledge his protection so sincerely—why would he look at her the way he did, with such raw wonder, hope, and fear—only to make a fool of her now?

Of course, there remained the possibility that he was truly as insane as Belle's attending nurse had told her she was, back at the hospital. But Belle refused to consider that.

"And…magic?" she whispered, swallowing.

"It exists—in our home-world, and in this one, too, soon enough."

Belle furrowed her brow. "What do you mean?"

In response, a wolfish smile flitted over Gold's lips. "I mean," he said, "that I'm bringing it back." And he dropped the small glass bottle into the well.

For a moment only stillness greeted the action, and the faint sound of the bottle striking the water below. But as Belle moved to Mr. Gold's side, the quality of light shifted, seeming to dim and brighten at the same time, and a strange-smelling wind began to stir from nowhere in particular. No, Belle realized, peering over the lip of the well—the wind was blowing up from the well itself, as if someone had opened a door at the bottom to reveal a storm on the other side. Squinting, she barely registered a faint, undulating shape in the depths before the first tendril of opaque purple smoke wound its way up into the light. Mr. Gold touched a reassuring hand to her elbow as she drew a sharp breath.

"This is it, Belle," he told her, tone hushed but triumphant as he watched the smoke begin to hemorrhage from the well in great, billowing clouds. Instinctively Belle shifted closer to him. She did not like the look of the clouds, which filled her with a dread as mysterious as it was undeniable, but she liked Mr. Gold's expression even less; there was something fierce to it, something hungry, like a freshly-sharpened knife in the hand of an overzealous surgeon. So she watched the storm-violet mist instead, biting her lip.

"This is the magic?"

"Yes. And more than that, it's power." His grip on her arm tightened subtly. The smoke was up to their knees, now, rolling past as if they, and not it, were the unreal things. "With this, Belle, we can both find what we have lost. I can return your memory. I can make the one who imprisoned you pay. I can fix _everything_." The last word emerged almost as a snarl, and Belle closed her eyes. His tone sounded familiar, somehow, she thought, leaning more fully against him.

She wondered why it made her want to cry.


End file.
